Squash Doubles News :)

And now for something really important 🙂

The new holders of the coveted Canadian squash doubles over-60 championships are Brian Murray and Stephen McIntyre of Toronto defeating John Brazilian and Malcolm Davidson of Boston in the final, held at the Atwater Club in Montreal.

In other events, Mike Pirnak and Willy Hosey won the men’s open championship and Stephanie Edmison and Stephanie Hewett won the women’s open.

The US squash doubles championships are in Chicago from March 25-27 and we’ll be going. I played in the US over 60s last year and lost in the semis with Victor Harding to the eventual winners. I played with Brian in the Canadians last year and lost in the final (but defeated the US champions in the semi.) While our children were growing up, I played league squash in Toronto but didn’t go in many tournaments, particularly if there was travel involved. I hadn’t been to a tournament in Montreal since 1986 or so and, until last year, had never traveled to a US championship.

Hosts of squash doubles tournaments usually make a great effort to be hospitable and our hosts in Montreal, especially Mike Martin and Dennis Bishop, upheld this tradition.

I had exactly the same reaction when I saw the photo … having not played squash since the 80’s. I never quite understood the rationale for the very small heads of the wooden squash racquets, because for a novice player, I would miss hit the ball quite often. But I had assumed it was to make them very light weight so as to improve the player’s racquet quickness (at the expense of sweet-spot size). But now with composites, I imagine the trade-off equation has changed.

Wow. I had expected to see your squash attire plastered with the logos of all of the big oil companies that some in the blogosphere allege are behind you, a la NASCAR or men’s tennis. I guess that they are mistaken… Oh well, best wishes for Chicago. btw, it is a great restaurant city so bon appetit as well.

Further OT but a Canadian connection. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed watching a rapidly rising young Canadian tennis star win the SAP open in San Jose, CA last month. Chap by the name of Milos Raonic, and no, no Exxon Mobil logos on his tennis duds, either.

You look like you have pencils for legs in the above photo. May I suggest you visit one of the many fine ethnic “all you can eat” buffets in Chicago to gain some weight? lol. Congratulations and I hope you play your best ever in Chicago.

Yup. A disappointing loss. Extra points in the fifth. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Would have been great to win a US championship. The match was about an hour and half long, which is a lot of squash for guys our age. We defeated last year’s champions in the semis, also a five game match, but not nearly as long.